Book Reviews

I wrote this novella w/ discussion guide to help show people what sustainability could look like, so they wouldn't think it was this huge sacrifice. If we are to create a sustainable future, we must first be able to envision it.http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback_book/the_dragonflys_question/62548...
Obviously, I can't objectively review my own book. So here's what others have said....

Kiernan, Matthew J (2009) Investing in a Sustainable World: Why GREEN is the new Color of Money on Wall Street. New York, NY: Amacom.
This book does a nice job of distinguishing socially responsible investing (where you use your personal values to decide what to invest in) and sustainable investing (where sustainability is a source of competitive advantage.
“Instead of expressing personal values, sustainability investing seeks to generate financial value through the application of a more robust, comprehensive, and forward-looking analytical framework.”

This is an amplification of one chapter or step in Kotter’s earlier works: how to increase a sense of true urgency (not frenetic busy-ness) in an organization. It’s a quick read with some good stories and blunt advice (including how to get rid of what he calls a NoNo, someone who undermines urgency, including firing them.)
Here’s an outline of his main points
• Bring the outside in (data, people, videos, etc.
• Behave with urgency every day (purge and delegate, move with speed, speak with passion, match words and deeds, let them all see it)

Grant, John (2007) The Green Marketing Manifesto. West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons.
John Grant is probably a good instructor because he has a knack for organizing something quite complex into a single image and then uses that image repeatedly, slowly building on it throughout the book. His green market grid has three columns (green, greener, greenest) and three rows (public company & markets, social brands & belonging) and personal products & habits, creating 9 types of green markets, each with its different approaches to green marketing.

Wilhelm, Kevin (2009) Return on Sustainability. Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing.
I don’t usually review self-published books but this one is worth a mention. Kevin Wilhelm has packed into a little book a ton of information that would be useful for executives to understand. Despite the title, it’s really primarily about climate risk and return, more than the broader topic of sustainability.